I was intrigued by the deep greens and bright blues of the water, and of course the crowd of sailboats around Dana Point. From the pier, I did a bunch of drawings of the water and the beautiful seaside town, and this studio painting from those plein air sketches.
This is the final painting in a series of 3 plein air pieces from Balboa Park. I love the Eucalyptus forest, with its medicinal scent and cool shade.
Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.
This cake is leaning. This is what happened.
I wanted to do cake paintings, specifically, triangular slices of cake. These are surprisingly hard to find, because a lot of the bakeries are degenerate and sell square slices of cake.
But I persevered. I went to all the supermarkets, all the bakeries. The urge was strong. Ralph’s, I discovered, sells the coveted triangular cake slices.
So I went to the store, I selected the prettiest slice of cake.
I came home, the cake kept wobbling and falling over. So I trimmed the bottom off the cake and ate it, and then it leaned like this.
Since this project started I have gained five pounds.
It’s your birthday, buy yourself some cake.
This is the second painting in a series of 3 plein air pieces I’ve been working on in Balboa Park in the shade of the eucalyptus trees. I’m hoping to finish the last one tomorrow.
I’ve been working on a series of three plein air paintings of this location in Balboa Park. I love the combination of colors and the hot sun contrasted with the cool, deep shade of the eucalyptus trees.
As a pale, freckly person, I like to paint in the shade. 😉
We recently took a road trip from San Diego, east around LA, and up the coast to Santa Barbara. This is one of the paintings from that trip, in San Diego’s East County.
A street corner in Little Italy, San Diego. I think this is Kettner, but I’m not sure. That’s the famous Wyland mural on the building to the left. I spent a couple of hours walking around this neighborhood while I was getting my car worked on, and started this painting and a couple of others.
I like Little Italy. It’s a mix of Victorian and ultramodern, which I find very appealing… with great pizza and terrible parking.
The Santa Ynez valley up above and inland from Santa Barbara, California is really too pretty to describe. I hope the painting says enough.
While there we also visited the Fess Parker winery- delicious!
A misty gray morning on the beach in Santa Barbara, California, with sailboats moored on the wide Pacific.
Oil on linen painting panel.
I think the gold and green landscapes of California summers are incredibly beautiful. This landscape is from the East County of San Diego.
Evening light on Santa Barbara’s incredible mountains, seen from a side street off State Street.
I was amazed by the atmospheric light effects on these mountains.
I thought I’d never seen light like this anywhere else, and then we saw the same effect in a Monet painting of the Italian riviera in the Santa Barbara art museum.
8 x 10 inches
oil on linen on panel
This is the second slice of cake I attempted to paint… the first one got eaten.
5 x 7 inches, oil on linen on panel.
A flowering cherry branch. We lived in Japan when I was young, and I have so many fond memories of that beautiful country.
I love the grass when it goes this gold color. It is so absolutely beautiful. In Virginia, this color combination was the color of winter- but here in San Diego, it’s the color of summer.
